Mismanagement of Garbage in Goa

GARBAGE OVERLOAD AREA

In short GOA! From time immemorial, man has generated garbage. In the earlier years, the population was very limited and paper, plastic & metal were unknown as there was hardly any packaging. But as the world developed and the population multiplied, the garbage generated by man also changed in tune with developments, especially in packaging. Simultaneously, urbanization also increased and population density in urban areas grew to be higher and higher putting a premium on land. The concept of living in apartments came in and the families lost the facility of having their own backyard for disposing the garbage generated by them. Consequently, the responsibility for disposing garbage devolved upon the civic administrations. As long as the population of an urbanized area was restricted to the residents, the problem was under control. It started getting out of hand when manufacturing, business, trade and tourism stopped having borders – this led to a heavy influx of non-residents on a perennial basis leading to a tremendous increase in the generation of garbage and compounding the problem of disposal. Recycling, landfill, power generation, generation of bio-products, etc., are the various options available, but, most civic administrations opted for the easy solution of landfill! What happens when there is no land, as has happened in Goa? The other options need to be utilized, but, this requires some amount of capital investment and also running costs. There is also an urgent need to educate the people on the aspects of segregation of garbage and thereafter, also penalize defaulters. Where do the funds come from? JNNURM, Property Tax, levies on tourists, toll booths for incoming traffic from other states, Garbage Tax on Hotels, Resort/Apartment complexes & Commercial Establishments are some of the avenues, the others being Registration and Stamp Duty. The era of free lunches should be closed and so, there is an urgent need to visit this area of governance and revise these charges to bring out a workable solution to the problem of garbage disposal without harming the environment and at the same time making the place habitable. However, this option requires political will more than decision making capabilities. Is it there in our state? The civic administrations need to urgently address this issue without recourse to politics and vote banks before the problem gets out of hand. There is not much time!

KALI